This paper is in line with research that analyzes the careers of European parliamentarians, adopting a comparative and cross-sectional approach and taking into account previous and subsequent political experiences in a multilevel perspective. Indeed, we propose a comparison between two similar cases, namely two southern European countries that have a quasi-federal system or are affected by an important regionalization process – Spain and Italy – and we examine a rather long time period ranging from the IV to the IX EP legislature. Our dataset consists of 508 observations, 195 relating to Spanish members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and 313 to Italian ones. By relying on the recent systematization, we propose to classify MEPs’ career models – which are our dependent variable – into four types: the EU shorter-termers, the ‘stepping stone’ MEPs, the EU long-termers, and the ‘multilevel surfers’. A multinominal regression analysis was conducted to understand which political factors (party affiliation of MEPs, length of previous career, critical European Parliament [EP] elections) may have a specific impact on each career type. We found that, after the 2014 EP critical election, the probability of MEPs engaging in the EP decreases, as they are more likely to develop a short-term career model than a long-term one. In addition, previous national experience and a regional executive career are the best predictors of a multilevel career.

Retaining operational effectiveness in a low-carbon world will require military innovation and change. Indeed, there has been growing acknowledgement within some defence ministries that as the world decarbonises a military energy transition is essential. In this paper, we illustrate how calls for a military energy transition have gained renewed traction within the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) since 2018. Empirically, we draw on semi-structured interviews with 46 officials and armed forces personnel, conducted by the authors between June and October 2023. To structure our analysis, we adopt a multilevel perspective (MLP) from the field of Sustainability Transitions. Combining the MLP with insights from the literature on military innovation, we shed light on the ways proponents of ‘low-carbon warfare’ have challenged the ‘high-carbon’ sociotechnical regime that currently dominates the MoD. We also explain why more rapid and disruptive change has been stymied. By centring attention on the extent of ‘alignment’ between internal and external sources of change, our MLP makes a valuable contribution to understanding why the struggle for military change often unfolds in non-linear ways.

For constructionism, language is the link among different levels of analysis of emotional events, from individual to interpersonal and macrosocial. The interaction among these emotional levels allows us to construe an emotional episode and label it with an emotion word, coordinate with the emotions perceived in others, and represent events as a society. Across two studies, we found similarities and differences among inner emotions experienced (individual level), emotions perceived in others (descriptive feeling rules, interpersonal level) and emotions shared on the internet (socioemotional conventions, macrosocial level), with all these emotional targets focused on the COVID–19 outbreak. The results indicate a similarity between the emotional meaning of COVID–19 in society and the descriptive feeling rules, whereas the reported inner emotions were clearly distinct: Joy was irrelevant at the interpersonal and macrosocial levels but clearly important at the individual level. A mismatch also appeared for fear and hope. While fear was the most predominant emotion at the interpersonal and macrosocial levels during most of the phases, it was moderately predominant at the individual level. Hope followed the opposite pattern, being the most relevant emotion at the individual level but less relevant at the interpersonal and macrosocial levels. Each level might have different consequences: Mixed emotions at the individual level might promote resilience; fear perceived in other people might motivate protective behaviors; and sadness socially shared during Christmas might generate greater empathy. These results support the complexity of emotional concepts and the suitability of exploring them at different levels of analysis.